It is well known that the use of wide area computer networks and particularly the internet are growing rapidly. Users nowadays have the ability to send and obtain more information than ever before relating to services provide by service providers and products created by manufacturers.
It is well known for manufacturers, distributors, vendors, retailers, the government, consumer protection groups and individuals to have websites accessible by the public for providing information relating to these products. This constant increase in information creates the need for systems which can efficiently extract useful information from all that is available.
People still read printed materials such as newspapers and magazines, and products are still delivered in printed packaging. Although many have foreseen the demise of such media, these media continue to have the advantage of permanence, lack of bulk, low cost and ease on the eyes. Often time a reader may wish to obtain more information on a particular subject as it relates to what is being read. For example, one reading a magazine may see an advertisement (or “ad”) by a vendor for a particular product. Often times the ad will contain the URL (universal resource locator), otherwise known as the web address of the product manufacturer. This often will appear as a printed character string such as “HTTP://WWW.MANUFACTURER.COM” which if typed into the user's browser software such as NAVIGATOR brand browser from Netscape Corporation, will transmit to the user the content of that page. Typing such strings into the computer is time consuming and prone to error. Also, the URL will often designate only the manufacturer's main page. The user will thereafter spend time reading and sifting her way through the displayed information on the main page and other pages before finding the information of interest.
It is well known to include a barcode on printed materials containing internet web addresses as disclosed in Knowles et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,869,819, Cragun et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,277 and Ikeda, U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,727 incorporated herein by this reference. The barcode is readable by barcode readers or scanners as disclosed in Barnich, U.S. Pat. No. 4,146,782 incorporated herein by this reference. In this specification, the word “scanner” means a device which is capable of reading the code. Other systems and methods as disclosed in Perkowski U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,918,214 and 5,950,173 incorporated herein by this reference access and deliver information over the internet related to UPC (Universal Product Number) barcodes. Such transactions may be encrypted as disclosed in Durst et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,829 incorporated herein by this reference.
One dimensional barcodes have a limited capacity for containing information and can detract from the appearance of the printed page as shown in FIG. 1A of Knowles et al. to the point where advertisers may feel the codes interfere with the positive effect of the ad. In addition, these codes only contain wed page addresses or URLs or product identification which is then looked up in a database to find manufacturer information.
Two dimensional printed page optical code (“2DOC”) symbology regimes are well known in the art. Regimes such as The DataMatrix regime are described in Palmer, The Barcode Book: Reading, Printing, and Specification of Bar Code Symbols, (3rd. ED, November 1995, Helmers Pub.) fully incorporated herein by this reference. DataMatrix type codes are capable of containing data representing over 50 characters of ASCII-128 depth in a code square measuring about 0.2 inch per side for documents having about 300 dots per inch resolution. These codes also have a unique orientation which allows single image reading from any angular orientation.
To date such codes have primarily been used to track shipped items. Such codes contain information relating to the package contents, its origin, destination, relevant dates and times, as disclosed in Castro, PERL and CGI for the World Wide Web, (Peachpit Press, Bekeley, Calif., 1999) incorporated herein by this reference.
It is well known to store information on the internet in so called web pages, each of which is written in browser readable programming languages such as HTML (HyperText Markup Language) as described in Castro HTML 4 For the World Wide Web, (Peachpit Press, Berkeley, Calif., 1998) incorporated herein by this reference. It is further well known that additional data may be passed to such sites or extracted from such sites using more advanced features available in existing internet based programming languages such as PERL, CGI or JAVASCRIPT, as disclosed in Castro, PERL and CGI . . . supra. For example, one may pass information through use of so-called Environmental Variables, or by adding information to the url string using the CGI “GET” method, or by using the CGI “POST” method. The data access abilities of such languages is well known to those skilled in the art.
It is well known to transmit internet advertising effectiveness information to various network components such as websites Castro, PERL and CGI . . . supra. For example, when a user clicks on an advertising banner on a particular website, the user is not only taken to the website of the advertiser, but also, other information regarding the effectiveness of the ad can be transmitted. If the ad was supplied by an ad service provider such as doubleclick.com, the transaction would likely be reported to the ad service. In addition, information identifying the publisher would likely be sent to the service and to the advertiser. Indeed, information regarding the referring page is typically stored in the HTTP-REFERRER environmental variable which would be accessible to the advertiser. However, such effectiveness tracking was heretofore unavailable to links originating from a printed page. In addition, this variable is subject to inaccuracies in various situations such as when a user types in a new URL while viewing a particular page (Castro, PERL and CGI . . . , supra page 63).
Accordingly, there is a need for taking advantage of the greater informational storage capacity and omnidirectional scanning or reading capability of 2DOC and allowing user interactivity to more precisely access and send data on the internet.